So I guess I have decided to build one myself. I have a few questions though if you guys could help me.

1. How do you know what is a good motherboard and what isn't? Why so many different socket types and chipsets and which ones I should get. Hopefully I will be able to upgrade easily if need be later? I want a P4 rather than AMD.

2. What does SATA and ATA133 or ATA150 or whatever mean? What's the difference, and which one do I want.

3. One of the main uses of the puter will be for DVD backup. What should I look for in a DVD burner? What's the difference between dual layer and what not.

4. Why is some memory labeled "Corsair" or whatever and similarly "prescott" on cpus.

5. Is there going to be anything else involved other than physically putting everything together. Like do I have to mess with settings and what not, or do I just put the puter together and install XP and be done with it?

6. I would like a decent graphics card, it doesn't have to be the best. Just one that will get me by comfortably. Everyone seems to know what is a good one and what isnt, how do you know?

*Sorry for all the newb questions... I guess you gotta learn sometime hey? I just took a puter class at college but learned none of this stuff. If someone can answer all my questions it would be greatly appreciated. I would rather be told what to look for and then have you guys approve my suggestions maybe rather than just saying "pick all my parts for me" or something...

1). Good MOBOs are based on their chipsets (I prefer nForce from nVidia) Secondly, why would you want a P4?? AMD64 pwns P4's in every sense of the word PWN. They are faster, more effcient, less heat, lower energy use, 64bit, better designed cores, SOI vs COI, higher data output rates thx to the higher pin configurations, and so much more.

2). ATA133 is the Newer ATA, however, SATA is ATA150 same thing... SATA150 is serial ATA. It uses the FASTEST data output rates at 150MB/sec. Go with SATA if you can, it is the future of technology.

3). On DVD Burners, there are many options. I would get a DVDRAM drive, just use newegg.com for that. If not a RAM drive, get a 16X DVD+-RW Dual Layer. Dual Layer are those disks that literally have two (2) layers of data encoding on them. The burner burns on the deepest level first, then burns on the top layer last. They are double the capacity of normal DVD disks. If you are doing backup however, you should get a magneto optical drive (they store huge amounts!!) Just use Newegg.com and search for Magneto.

4). Ok, Corsair is a memory company. They are a good company, just not what I WOULD RECOMMEND. I recommend you go with Geil, or if you are ready for the fastest RAM in the world, Crucial Ballistix or Kingston HyperX Low Latency Series. Geils UltraX is also right up there with those 2.

4 Contiuned). This deserves another part of discussion. A Prescott is the core of the Pentium4 series, along with a Northwood core, and the Pentium4 Extreme Edition (waste of money) which uses the newer advanced 1066Mhz Northwood core. Pentiums are OK processors, and are fast, but are INEFFICIENT!! They take 20 steps to process a command, while an AMD64 takes only 8. Thus, AMDs don't need to run as fast to do as much work. Not going with AMD is really not a good choice at all. Pentiums are the same price, and you should really go with a processor that will last you at least 4 years since it is 64bit. The only Intel processors that are "64bit" are the newer EM64Xeons, and the EM64Itanium chips, both of which you don't want, since they are server bound. On AMD's, there are many more cores available to you. The main one is the Newcastle Core, however, the best AMD cores are the Sledgehammer and Clawhammer cores, since they are based on the SOI technology (Silicon on Interconnect) I would go AMD, it is the best for the money, speed, efficiency, and everything else.

5). There are quite a few settings that need to be configured. The main one is the BIOS (Basic Input Output System) The BIOS is the cerebellum of the motherboard (it holds the basic commands for hardware but really isnt a program). The BIOS has to be configured correctly so that all the hardware works together. There are many settings on MOBOs, but overall, moving a few jumpers fixes most things. The hardest thing is connecting the front LEDs and controls on a tower to the MOBO, since it is sometimes hard to find those pins. RAM is easy, Front Side Bus can be a pain if you are not careful, and Hardrives need to be in the proper settings (one master, multiple slaves) Then you install XP on your MAster Hardrive.

6). I cannot answer this question without a price range you want to spend on the GPU. Also, I need to know if you plan on going PCI Express of AGP, and some other details such as do you plan on gaming alot, or graphic design, or what? Tell me this, I tell you what you probably want for a Graphics Card (GPU)

Your welcome, my fingers are on fire, so if you excuse me, I need to go plunge them underwater after typing this amount of info. Have a nice day, and USE AMD!

Well let me make one comment about ATA/133 and SATA/150. One I made many times in the past. You can't tell the difference as SATA is only 17MB/S faster and Windows has a restriction at either 66 or 100MB/S (can't quite remember which).

As far as ram goes, my own personal recommendation is GeIL. Even the Golden Dragon's I have are good and solid.

True again, but SATA is the way to go, since with an AMD64 he will be keeping it for a while. The newer Windows will allow 200MB/sec next time around. Currently, it is 100MB/sec on XP. However, the service pack for 2000 allows for 150MB/sec on SATA. A service pack that updates driver upload capabilites should be available soon so that 133MB/sec is available.

I really don't agree with SATA being the way to go. I have had plenty of stability issues with the one 60GB SATA, and so has my dad with an 80GB one. They both are useless now and don't even work. The newer Windows will allow 200mb/s? You have a source to back that up? And no, Windows 2000 does not work well with SATA (personal experience).